Wednesday, February 20, 2008

We only spent a couple hours in the Animal Kingdom park on my recent visit -- just long enough to accomplish our main goal, a ride on Expedition Everest:

This was an absolutely wonderful ride. It was exciting to be able to finally ride it, after having seen it under construction 2-1/2 years ago.

The ride area has excellent theming; the line "pre-show" area was a curious mixture of real Everest history and mythical Disney lore related to the "Yeti," who "stars" in the ride. (Think the Abominable Snowman at Disneyland's Matterhorn, only much bigger.) I thought the ride might end up being a little too intense for me, but it wasn't at all -- I loved it and can't wait to go on it again one day!

We also had time to fit in Dinosaur, which is a wild jeep ride similar in style to Disneyland's Indiana Jones ride.

The Tree of Life, photographed in 2005:

Previous links on this month's Disney World trip can all be found at the bottom of this post.

3 Comments:

These two rides are ones I would definitely want to go on some day. I am glad to hear that Everest is not too intense. I'm getting too old for that kind of thing, unfortunately. This theme park did not exist back in the early 90's. Now that we have It's Tough To Be A Bug (which I love) out here, I don't have to be concerned about seeing it back there. When I do go I want to see and go on things germane to WDW :)

I'd compare Everest to Big Thunder, except a portion of it goes backwards (grin). Having seen it under construction, I was worried it would have really steep drops, and it didn't. When I was on it I kept thinking how much fun it was -- it is very creative.

Since this was a short trip we followed your strategy and focused on things which don't exist in CA. At the Magic Kingdom, for example, we did things like Mickey's Philharmagic (I *love* it), Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and the new Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. Photos from the MK and Epcot coming soon!

I agree with you on Expedition Everest. When we went to DAK almost 2 years ago, just before the last week of school in my senior year, I rode it twice! Since that day I denounced the Tower of Terror in Disney's Hollywood Studios as my second-favorite ride to Everest in WDW!